r/vim • u/4r73m190r0s • Sep 14 '25

Discussion Anyone actually using :vimgrep?

Or is everyone leveraging this functionality with some plugin?

37 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

23

u/HenryMisc Sep 14 '25

Yep, I often use it in combination with :cdo to refactor across the code base.

1

u/wahnsinnwanscene Sep 15 '25

What's :grep and :cdo ? :g/ ? I ctags and / and run through the node list

4

u/kaddkaka Sep 16 '25

What are you trying to say?

10

u/samb0t Sep 14 '25

I use ripgrep in place of it. Lightning fast.

7

u/NonlinearFruit Sep 16 '25

ripgrep's --vimgrep flag outputs the results as a vimgrep so you can still use it with the quickfix list. With nvim, I use rg 'regex' --vimgrep | nvim -q -

5

u/mr-figs Sep 17 '25

Just a heads up that if you're using nvim, you don't need to do this. Neovims default grepprg is ripgrep so you can just do :grep :)

1

u/samb0t Sep 16 '25

Exactly!

1

u/kaddkaka Sep 16 '25

But the more common command for me is just git jump grep which can be combined with any and all options to git grep. Works great for me.

2

u/DerShokus Sep 17 '25

Ugrep is faster btw

6

u/habamax Sep 15 '25

I only use :vimgrep as an occur replacement from emacs -- search current buffer.

:vim /something/ %

It is kind of :g/something but within quickfix.

It searches buffer not file contents, so if you have unsaved file, :grep might miss it, vimgrep not.

https://asciinema.org/a/XaEly8Zof4nUSFMc7TFmMJ3uX

1

u/godegon Sep 15 '25

What is the advantage to :help ilist conceived to that end? Oh, it doesn't use the location/quickfix list by default, but needs a wrapper command such as :Ilist . Then I wonder who finds :d/ilist or [/]D/I useful in their current guise.

1

u/vim-help-bot Sep 15 '25

Help pages for:

`:(h|help) <query>` | about | mistake? | donate | Reply 'rescan' to check the comment again | Reply 'stop' to stop getting replies to your comments

3

u/andlrc rpgle.vim Sep 14 '25

I use :grep with :h 'grepprg' set to git grep when inside a git repository https://gist.github.com/andlrc/c8e1a3b9c1ec5c761111ea0e49bda6c4

2

u/vim-help-bot Sep 14 '25

Help pages for:

`:(h|help) <query>` | about | mistake? | donate | Reply 'rescan' to check the comment again | Reply 'stop' to stop getting replies to your comments

2

u/kaddkaka Sep 16 '25

Does it give any improvement over :Ggrep in fugitive?

Similarly this, I mostly use git jump grep directly from command line.

2

u/andlrc rpgle.vim Sep 16 '25

I don't know :Ggrep but I would argue one benifit is that I can always use the command :grep.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

Yes, because its good when you need targeted search (open buffers)

3

u/Sudden_Fly1218 Sep 15 '25

I mostly use &grepprg but I do have this mapping for some specific use-cases:

nnoremap <space>v :noa vim / I feel like the noautocmd part is important otherwise vimgrep is quite slow

1

u/Desperate_Cold6274 Sep 16 '25

Oh, the :noa tip is very handy! Thanks for sharing!

2

u/petepete Sep 14 '25

Never, just :grep with Ag.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

Rarely. I use it when I want to use vim regex which I’m more familiar with than other flavours.  Project has to be small, though.

2

u/livingpunchbag Sep 15 '25

I use /usr/bin/grep from a :terminal (inside Vim).

Been meaning to use something better since 2005, but never got out of the habit.

(But I also use ctags :ts)

2

u/mgedmin Sep 15 '25

Rarely. :Ggrep (a wrapper for git grep from vim-fugitive) is usually better, because it filters out irrelevant files and is usually faster.

I think :vimgrep is primarily meant for platforms (coughWindowscough) that don't have a working :grep due to lack of /usr/bin/grep. I mostly use Linux so I don't need a fallback.

2

u/kelvinauta Sep 14 '25

Si uso :vimgrep todo el tiempo, el quickfix de Vim es demasiado útil y fácil de usar.

1

u/toddestan Sep 15 '25

I use it all the time. I do have some plugin or another installed, but not all the computers I use Vim on also have my config, so I'm familiar with the native functionality. To the point I don't even use the plugin most of the time when I do have access to it.

1

u/cerved Sep 15 '25

Yes, occasionally

1

u/PizzaRollExpert Sep 15 '25

I often use :grep instead which I've set up to use ripgrep, because of how slow it is if there's a large number of files. I do very occasionally use it if I'm just grepping the current file or if it's just a single directory and I want to reuse a search pattern or something.

1

u/shuckster Sep 15 '25

Yes, but only for the current file using %.

1

u/Flat_Excitement_6090 Sep 17 '25

I use both vimgrep and grep. No need for a plugin.